HLT Magazine, January 03 : Seth Lindstromberg's Column

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Humanising Language Teaching
Year 5; Issue 1; January 03

Some differences between standard British and standard U.S. English

Seth Lindstromberg

People learning English, even if already very proficient, sometimes wonder about the extent to which the variety they are learning differs from this or that other variety—e.g., the extent to which standard British English (or BrE) differs from standard U.S. English (or AmE)*.

Indeed, many TESOL coursebooks have a section somewhere on differences between these two varieties. However, going by what I have seen of this material, the differences mentioned are quite few and in some cases not wholly accurate.

Of course in certain learner's dictionaries there is a huge amount of very good information about differences in lexis and pronunciation but it is, for the most part, scattered throughout all the entries and so impossible to survey all at once.

There is also a great deal of information in the literature on linguistics; but very few learners of English are in a position to get an overview of this.

In short, a learner…or even a non-native speaking teacher…of English may find that a satisfactory amount of information is hard to come by.

A further possible problem is the popular currency of beliefs which are either wholly or partly inaccurate—e.g., that ain't is an Americanism (it is widely used on both sides of the Atlantic), that British people always say lorry rather than truck and that Americans never say Bloody XXX!.

I would like now to do my bit to clarify these matters somewhat by mentioning a few dozen differences of which I am aware in the hope that some of them will be ones you hadn't noticed yourself.

First of all, different sorts of generalizations can be made, for example:

The difference between some varieties of BrE and AmE is greater than the difference between standard BrE and AmE. This is true of—

youth slang
the argot of criminals and other 'out' groups
the jargon of institutions based on unique national legislation (e.g., the British National Health Service has its own jargon)
local dialects (e.g., Glaswegian almost certainly differs more from the AmE of the Smoky Mountain valleys than do standard BrE and AmE).

Some general differences between BrE and AmE may be coming increasingly to the fore. For example, AmE, but not BrE, is certain to be influenced (albeit probably not radically) in its lexis by Spanish owing to the many millions of Spanish speakers who have come, and continue to come, to live in the USA . On the other hand, certain features of Cockney English are creeping into standard BrE—e.g., replacement of intervocalic /t/ (as in writer) with a glottal stop.**

The more formal the style and setting and the more international the topic, the more similar BrE and AmE become. This is especially true of writing …most especially of academic writing…and probably most true of all of writing by people working in the formal and natural sciences (e.g., logic and biology, respectively) and in the international technologies (e.g., electrical engineering)..

There are far fewer differences in grammar than in vocabulary and pronunciation—and even in these last two areas the underlying systems are exceedingly similar.

There are doubtless a few other generalizations I ought to add, but what I want to do now is turn to particular differences. (I have not attempted to classify them very much.) Left column: BrE Right column: AmE

People tend to say things like I recommend (that) X is done So also suggest, insist, order, ordain… etc In very formal Br.E. the subjunctive may also be used as in AmE.	àrecommend (that) X be done This is a subjunctive. In US English the following have different meanings: insist she does it/insist she do it; not in Br.E.
Phrasal verbs are, I guess, 99% the same--a few differences: I'll catch you up.à have it off with s'one [= 'have sex with']à look something out [= 'find something and get it out'] à	ßI'll catch up with you. ß[doesn't exist] ß [doesn't exist]
Prepositions too are used 99% the same—a few miscellaneous differences: I live in King Street.à But a café on the motorway [not in]…so the difference in preposition use tend not to apply to broad out of town thoroughfares! Team X was 2^nd on 10 points.à It's not on the cards.à He's on good form.à	ßI live on King. ßTeam X was 2^nd at/with 10 points. ßIt's not in the cards. {='It's not going to happen.'] ßHe's in good form. [='He's performing at or near the top of his ability']
Re—verb forms for recent acts/happenings: I've just seen* him.*à But young people are seem to making increasing use of the Simple Past as in AmE.	ßI just saw* him*. But many people would also use the Present Perfect as in BrE.
Quite is not very positive, so… It was quite nice isn't much of a compliment.	Quite is more positive than in BrE. It was quite nice is a decent compliment.
Except for some rural dialects (esp. in the West Country) and Irish and Scottish, 'r' is only pronounced as /r/ if it comes before a vowel. Floor & flaw, Bali & barley are homophones.	All Canadians and most Americans pronounce all occurrences of 'r' as /r/.
BrE and AmE different in stress and intonation in phrases of some types, e.g.— miles five awayà	five miles ß away
In scores of words, but not usually common ones, there is different primary stress— interrogatoryà con*tro*versyà But the American stressing can also be heard. Some –atory adjectives don't exist in AmE… intimidatoryà	ß interro gatory ß *con*troversy ßintim idating
Some vowels are different in some words—e.g., In the south BrE and in posh BrE generally, dance and about 200 other words are pronounced with a very open 'a'. There are various other one-off as well as narrowly systematic differences, e.g.: vitamin /vIt…/, privacy /prIv…/ à tofu, with the 'o' pronounced rather like the vowel in caught, as it is in some other words with a pure /o/ that have been borrowed from, say, Japanese.à For more about systematic differences, get hold of two learner's dictionaries, one on BrE and one on AmE, both produced by the same publisher (e.g., Oxford University Press) and compare their pronunciation tables. E.g., long 'o' is pronounced differently…/eU/ in BrE, /ou/ in AmE	In North American English, the vowel in dance is /æ/. [In the North of England, the vowel used is very similar to that in AmE—i.e., /a/.] ß vitamin /vait…/, privacy /praiv…/ ß tofu /ou/

Names of institutions, e.g.: public schools v state schoolsà	ßprivate schools vs public schools
Names of certain car related words-- boot, bonnet, windscreen, fender…à diversion, tarmac… à This kind of difference is mainly true of technologies developed between 1776 and the internationalization of the media in the 2^nd half of the 20^th century.	ßtrunk, hood, windshield, mudguard… ßdetour, blacktop…
In many British dialects, 'h' is generally dropped— houseà 'ouse	In one word, AmE lacks a vowel in pronunciation which is present in standard BrE.à herb is AmE 'erb.
Some people think pronunciations such as gonna for going to and drinkin' for drinking are AmE. This is not true. Both are common in BrE and AmE.	She/He don't is heard on both sides of the Atlantic.
In some cases, AmE and upper-class BrE are similarly different from middle and working class BrE— servietteà	ßnapkin AmE and upper-class BrE
Sometimes BrE is the more Frenchified— aubergine [US zucchini], mange-touts [US snow peas], cul de sac [US dead-end], secateurs [US shears], programme [US program], gateau [US cake]…	Sometimes it's the other way around— aisle [in BrE gangway is common], reserve a room [BrE, book a room], garage pronounced in a more French way in AmE than BrE… There are many instances of differences both ways.
The names of some punctuation marks are different— " " inverted commas ( ) brackets [ ] square brackets . full stop In BrE it is single inverted commas that are preferred for the indication of direct speech—e.g., 'Hi', she said. AmE prefers " ".	" " quotation marks ( ) parentheses [ ] brackets . period In some cases, the AmE version was common 19^th Br. E.
BrE has borrowed a lot from AmE in recent years—e.g., truck is now more common than lorry. The reasons for this are pretty obvious but interestingly…à	But AmE borrows a bit from BrE—e.g., tavern has been replaced by pub in parts of the USA. Many so-called American films and even TV shows have British actors in them. This has probably had some effect on American usage.

post a letter, postman but The Royal Mail	mail a letter, mailman
Sailing boat, rowing boat, racing car…	Sail boat, row boat, race car..
autumn	fall (but autumn is used as well, e.g., autumn leaves and expressions generally in which fall might be ambiguous, e.g., the autumn of one's life…)
There are a number of words (besides fall='autumn') which, although original to BrE, are now characteristic of AmE. Thus, sidewalk (which was used, e.g., by the British writer Saki about 100 years ago) is now AmE only. The words lawyer and attorney were also common in BrE at one time (e.g., Samuel Johnson used the latter). The phrasal verb meet up (thought by some to be AmE only) was used by Oscar Wilde.

This list could easily be made longer by adding more and more differences in lexis (e.g., BrE CV, AmE resume) or pronunciation (e.g., writer as BrE /raIt../ and AmE /raiD../). Indeed, the list could be made so long that it would seem to show that Americans and British people cannot possibly understand each other much at all even though, oddly, they can (unless the individuals in question are too insular in mentality). However, it would be more interesting instead to identify differences of other kinds—e.g.,

· ways of talking informally in small groups (My impression is that British people are quicker to interrupt and take over if whoever is speaking pauses for a split second.)

· sense of humour (Irony is recognized by many Americans, contrary to what British people tend to believe, but it is true, I think, that punning is practiced far more in Britain than in the USA.)

· ways of conducting interviews (I think British interviewers are especially prone to taking the role of devil's advocate.)

Yes, this would be much more interesting. Perhaps our editor can find someone who knows about these things and prevail upon her/him to amendment and extend this much more valuable itemization.

Notes

* The terms Standard British English and Standard American are not particularly easy to define in detail, but I think it is possible to say a few things of value without doing so.

** John Wells has written well and widely on such matters. See his home page:

http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/index.html

SethL@hilderstone.ac.uk